Floundering Team Hyderabad seemed to have saved their best for the penultimate league engagement against Rajasthan on Friday. Dravid's Rajasthan, needing two wins from their last two outings, looked in a spot of bother after batting first.
Their total of 126/8 was not enough to test even Hyderabad, who cantered to a five-wicket win sans skipper Kumar Sangakkara at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Friday. The defeat ensured Rajasthan's elimination from this year's event with one game in hand.
Coming into this game, they needed to win both to stay in the hunt. With their batting coming a cropper, it was left to Shaun Tait and company to keep Rajasthan in the hunt. But the bowling held no terrors for Hyderabad lad Akshath Reddy and the in-form Shikhar Dhawan. Akshath, the 21-year old Ranji opener, impressed with 42 (35b; 4x4, 1x6) as 69 runs came in the first 10 overs.
His 63-run (51b) partnership with Dhawan put Hyderabad on a firm footing and though the latter holed out for 26 (24b, 2x4, 2x6), the duo had done enough to ensure the hosts could register their second IPL win at the venue with eight deliveries to spare. Ashish Reddy applying the finish touches with two consecutive boundaries off Tait.
Rajasthan have only themselves to blame for this early exit. Hyderabad, true to coach Darren Lehmann's words, having spoilt Rajasthan's party, will be left wondering what could have been.
Earlier, once Dale Steyn had neutralised Ajinkya Rahane's threat, the Rajasthan innings lost momentum. The Mumbaikar, back at second place in the batting charts behind Chris Gayle, was left clueless by the South African pacer and it could have been worse than 20/1 had Shikhar Dhawan and Ashish Reddy not dropped Watson and Dravid off Manpreet Gony.
Fortunately for the hosts, it didn't prove costly.
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